From the Washington Post Style Invitational in which it was postulated that English has male and female nouns, and readers were asked to assign a gender to nouns of their choice, and explain their reason.

The best submissions:

Detective Novel — f., because you’re not supposed to peek at its end the minute you pick it up.

Swiss Army Knife — m., because even though it appears useful for a wide variety of work, it spends most of its time just opening bottles.

Kidneys — f., because they always go to the bathroom in pairs.

Penlight — m., because it can be turned on very easily, but isn’t very bright.

Hammer — m., because it hasn’t evolved much over the last 5,000 years but it’s handy to have around and is good for killing spiders.

Tire — m., because it goes bald and often is over-inflated.

Hot air balloon — m., because to get it to go anywhere you have to light a fire under it. And, of course, there’s the hot air part.

Web page — f., because it is always getting hit on.

Web page — m., because you have to wait for it to reload.

Shoe — m., because it is usually unpolished, with its tongue hanging out.

Copier — f., because once turned off, it takes a while to warm up. Because it is an effective reproductive device when the right buttons are pushed. Because it can wreak havoc when the wrong buttons are pushed.

Magic 8 Ball — m., because it gives monosyllabic answers that usually indicate it did not pay attention to your question.

Ziploc bags — m., because they hold everything in, but you can always see right through them.